Development of Neonatal Sensory Processing

Preterm neonates are born during a critical phase of their brain development and are exposed to the external world ahead of time. Many of them can spend their first months of life in neonatal care, where they are exposed to different and more intense stimuli than those normally experienced in the womb, especially when needing repeated clinically-required painful procedures. This experience may affect the way their brain develops and in particular interfere with the maturation of those circuits that are responsible for processing the external environment. We are a team of neonatologists, neuroscientists, clinical neurophysiologists and statistical scientists who are investigating how brain activity changes with development, and how it responds to stimulation from the surroundings, including while having clinically required procedures. To do this, we use non-invasive neurophysiological and imaging techniques. Our aim is to understand when the framework for processing the sensory environment matures to inform clinical care of newborn infants during hospitalization and how this may affect their long term neurodevelopment.